Elisabeth Kirschmann, a young widow, lived with her young son in the parish house at Unterländer Straße 65 in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. Wilhelm Gümbel, a colleague of her late husband Heinrich, was the local pastor. Two people from Berlin who had gone underground found refuge for a time in the parish house: in 1943 the “non-Aryan” Christian Ella Friedemann, and in May/June 1944 the Jewish doctor Hermann Pineas. He had previously been hidden in Schwenningen in the home of the curate Margarete Hoffer, a friend of Elisabeth Kirschmann’s. As a youth worker and religious education teacher, Kirschmann had more than 20 young people visiting her on two evenings a week. If any of them happened to see the unknown Pineas, he was introduced as “Dr. Günter.” Both Hermann Pineas and Ella Friedemann survived.
In 1948 Kirschmann married Hermann Fuchs, who later became a university music director, and moved with him to Göttingen. Elisabeth Fuchs was honored for her help with the Federal Cross of Merit in 1979.